Metal Underground.com

Through The Eyes Of The Dead delivered a fresh album in the often stagnant genre of death metal this fall with "Bloodlust." Through the Eyes of the Dead ["TTEOTD" for short] have mixed in a healthy dose of thrash, some melidic metal, and the best parts of hardcore including a few breakdowns and short hardcore-sounding riffs between changeups to make "Bloodlust" one hell of a death metal album. Not only does the band incorporate the aforementioned elements into their sound, but they blend the elements into their music so well that they've practically created their own brand of death metal. Die hard death-heads should not worry, as this album has plenty of death metal riffs, double bass drumms, blast beats, snare smashing, death metal growls and vocals and brutality as the next death metal album.

After an intro track of noise and agonized wailing, "Two Inches From a Main Artery" transitions in with some snares and open chords before picking up speed to a full-blown death metal riff and blast beats. The track ends with a breakdown-like riff before transitioning and picking back up on the next track "When Everything Becomes Nothing," with little time to feel satisfied. The brutality continues with loads of changeups, aggression, and a remarkable melodic slower part toward the end of the song.

Tracks 4 and 5 are by far my favorites, both containing more diversity with both hardcore and thrash elements in them. "Bringer of Truth" actually has more death metal style riffing, but converts these riffs to alternating death metal grooves and breakdowns at times, finally ending in one heavy-ass breakdown. "Beneath Dying Skies" continues with many more fast and slow/heavy changeups. It's on this track that TTEOTD so completely blurs the lines between what makes up the heavy slow-downs of death metal and a hardcore breakdown that you won't really care which it is.

The pace is broken up by an accoustic instrumental song for a minute and a half before continuing with its break-neck pace and brutality. Through the Eyes of the Dead prove time and time again that they can compose longer songs as well, with the next track lasting well over six minutes and never having a dull moment. The rest of the album is more of the same, but certainly not in the sense that other death metal bands can become monotonous and repetetive. On the contrary, "Bloodlust" is full of chageups, speed, aggression, heaviness and diversity and is enjoyable from start to finish. Still, with that many changeups, tracks 7, 8 and 9 tend to blend right together, which is by no means a bad thing.

The final track before the outro unfortunately blends right into the outro and should be part of it, in my opinion.

Throughout eight full tracks (not counting the intro, final track and outro), "Bloodlust" is a brutal treat that I can't get enough of. Through The Eyes Of The Dead have crafted their own unique sound out of old school death metal and newer elements of what is hot now - melodic metal and metalcore, which are often mixed themselves - and now only have to carve out their spot in the metal scene and metal history if they so desire.